XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

kevinrse · 2013-08-17 17:57:46

Hello CrunchGang,

I'm not able to adjust volume using the special keys on my Lenovo e420. This behavior occurred for the first time yesterday and it's happening again now. Can't figure out what I could have done that made them stop working.

Some background: I have only added a few keybindings to my OpenBox rc.xml since first installing CrunchBang Waldorf a few months ago, and I've always tested them incrementally to ensure they work. I've left all of the default keybindings as they come with #!. I do recall that at one point when I was messing with the keybindings, I wondered where the audio raise & lower bindings were. If I remember right, I think I figured out that they were controlled by tint2 through the events XF86AudioRaiseVolume and XF86AudioLowerVolume. (I can't find entries in my ~/.config/tint2 at the moment, but I think I once verified this and found them somewhere... I also observed that the "XF86Audio..." events were raised, using the program xev). I just checked now and verified that there are no volume bindings in my OpenBox config file.

The volume adjust keys, on my machine (a Lenovo e420), are obtained by pressing "Fn+F2" and "Fn+F3." (The keyboard has special shift-functions for the function keys, and I have the setting in the BIOS on "Legacy mode" so that standard F-key functionality is similar to most "normal" keyboards on a PC).

As I said, I've never had trouble adjusting volume using these shortcut keys. However, yesterday and today, I've found that those shortcuts are unresponsive. Can't figure out why. I ran "xev" and noticed that the "XF86Audio..." events no longer occur when I press Fn-F2 or Fn-F3. Instead, I get these events on the xev readout:

KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    root 0xb5, subw 0x0, time 1615960, (74,86), root:(1001,328),
    state 0x0, keycode 151 (keysym 0x1008ff2b, XF86WakeUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

FocusOut event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor

FocusOut event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor

KeymapNotify event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys:  4294967221 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
           0   0   4294967168 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   

KeyRelease event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    root 0xb5, subw 0x0, time 1616213, (74,86), root:(1001,328),
    state 0x0, keycode 151 (keysym 0x1008ff2b, XF86WakeUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The above is for Fn-F2. The following one is for Fn-F3:

KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    root 0xb5, subw 0x3200002, time 1721634, (43,31), root:(637,350),
    state 0x0, keycode 151 (keysym 0x1008ff2b, XF86WakeUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

FocusOut event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor

FocusIn event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor

KeymapNotify event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys:  2   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
           0   0   4294967168 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   

KeyRelease event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
    root 0xb5, subw 0x3200002, time 1721997, (43,31), root:(637,350),
    state 0x0, keycode 151 (keysym 0x1008ff2b, XF86WakeUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Can anyone enlighten me?

ohnonot · 2013-08-19 06:21:44

if i read the output of xev right, your volume keys are now XF86WakeUp?
of course it would be interesting to know why that happened; but let's concentrate on a solution, for now.

try to find where the XF86Audio* keys are now (with xev?) and see if they still work.

search "keymap" on this and other forums.
i think there is a way of remapping all keys.
see:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KEYMAP
http://www.iceflatline.com/2009/08/set- … ang-linux/

a workaround would be to set up a keybind in rc.xml for XF86WakeUp to raise (pulseaudio or alsa) volume. both alsa and pulseaudio have ways of doing this via command line. please use the man pages.

kevinrse · 2013-08-25 20:38:32

ohnonot,

Sorry I forgot to reply sooner. Just an update, this problem happened a couple of times and didn't seem to happen again. Maybe a weird hardware conflict. If it occurs in the future I will look into it. Thanks again for the help.

HunsonAdabeer · 2013-08-27 00:07:40

kevinrse wrote:

ohnonot,
Sorry I forgot to reply sooner. Just an update, this problem happened a couple of times and didn't seem to happen again. Maybe a weird hardware conflict. If it occurs in the future I will look into it. Thanks again for the help.

Its most likely a HW problem as I just happen to experience something similar to what yoy describe. I once installed #! in my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 1526) and all multimedia keys used to work out of the box except for Vol+ and Vol-, Mute key was half-working as it only muted but when pressed again nothing happened.

Today I reinstalled #! on the same computer and the issue was still there, I spend like 3 hours trying to make them work. Notice that neither "xev" nor "xbindkeys" reading Vol- and Vol+, Mute was fine and worked after I changed rc.xml.

After a couple hours Vol- and Vol+ started to work. Both "xev" and "xbindkeys" started to read correctly the keybind for Vol-/Vol+.

Something I noticed too (perhaps its important) was that even when volume controls (vol+/-) wheren't changing volume at all, the notification area showed the volume meter changing ... After the controls started working the volume notification stoped to show.

pvsage · 2013-08-27 05:09:29

My first suggestion would be to remove Pulseaudio; for some reason, many of us are unable to use the volume keys to control volume with Pulseaudio installed. (There are also many hardware-specific audio glitches that are most easily solved by removing Pulseaudio.) If you need to keep Pulseaudio for any reason, hopefully somebody else who also uses Pulse will be along to help you configure it; I got it working once several months ago - I think it involved changing the default software channel for the sound card in pavucontrol - but I can't remember what I did.

CrunchBang Linux

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#1 2013-08-17 17:57:46

XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

#2 2013-08-19 06:21:44

Re: XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

#3 2013-08-25 20:38:32

Re: XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

#4 2013-08-27 00:07:40

Re: XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

#5 2013-08-27 05:09:29

Re: XF86AudioRaiseVolume doesn't work; haven't changed keybingings. Help?

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